I love this piece!It demonstrates with a few well told stories, how important our words are to our children. It's not easy to raise kids, but I find that remembering what is the most important thing, our children's hearts and our loving connection with them, makes it all worthwhile.
I'll never forget the
story of David, my next door neighbor a while back, who taught me a great
lesson one morning as I watched him trying to teach his seven-year-old son how
to push the gas-powered lawn mower around the yard. As he was showing him how
to turn the mower around at the end of the lawn, his wife Jan called to him to
ask a question. When David turned to answer the question, Kelly pushed the lawn
mower right through the flower bed at the edge of the lawn--leaving a two-foot
wide path leveled to the ground!
David was not happy
about this. As soon as he saw what had happened, he began to lose control.
David had put a lot of time and effort into making those flower beds the envy
of the neighborhood. The moment his voice climbed higher in a semi-rage toward
poor Kelly, Jan walked quickly over to him, put her hand on his shoulder and
said, "David, please remember...we're raising children, not flowers!"
The moral of this
story couldn't be more important today. Each one of us is enduring more stress
as we face a recession and a deep financial shakeup that has no end in sight.
During times like these it's essential for us parents to remember what our
priorities are. Our kids and their self-esteem are more important than any
physical object they might break or destroy. The window pane shattered by a
mishit baseball, a lamp knocked over by a careless child, or a plate dropped in
the kitchen are already broken. The flowers are already dead. All of these
things are replaceable; our children are not. We must remember not to add to
the destruction by breaking a child's spirit and deadening their sense of
aliveness.
Words, especially
when yelled in anger, can be very damaging to a child's self-confidence. The
child probably already feels bad enough just from seeing the consequences of
his or her behavior. Our sons and daughters don't need more guilt and
self-doubt heaped upon their already wounded egos. If anything, they need to be
reminded that we all make mistakes throughout our life. (Here's an exercise to
try: the next time you feel like raising your voice to one of your kids, stop
and think about the last time you made a mistake. It probably wasn't too long
ago, and you really don't care to be yelled at for that right now.)
More recently, I was
buying some new clothes in a men's store and the owner and I started talking
about parenting. He told me that while he and his wife and seven-year-old
daughter were out at a restaurant for dinner, his daughter knocked over her
water glass. It spilled everywhere and messed up her mother's dress as the
water flowed over the edge near her seat. After the water was cleaned up
without any recriminating remarks from her parents, she looked up and said,
"You know, I really want to thank you guys for not being like other
parents. Most of my friends' parents would have yelled at them and given them a
lecture about paying more attention. Thanks for not doing that!"
Once, when I was
having dinner with some friends, a similar incident happened. Their
five-year-old son knocked over a glass of milk at the dinner table. When they
immediately started in on him, I knocked my glass over, too. When I started to
explain how I still knock things over even as an adult, the boy started to beam
and the parents seemingly got the message and backed off. How easy it is to
forget that we are all still learning.
One of the best
stories I've ever heard about "spilt milk" and the lessons of making
a mess comes from a famous research scientist who made several very important
medical breakthroughs. A newspaper reporter once asked him why he thought he
was able to be so much more creative than the average person. What set him so
far apart from others?
He responded that, in
his opinion, it all came from an experience with his mother, which occurred
when he was about two years old. He had been trying to remove a bottle of milk
from the refrigerator, when he lost his grip on the slippery bottle and it
fell, spilling its contents all over the kitchen floor--a veritable sea of
milk! (Thankfully, no glass shattered, but the milk kept flowing out like a
river.)
When his mother came
into the kitchen, instead of yelling at him, giving him a lecture, or punishing
him, she said, "Robert, what a great and wonderful mess you have made! I
have rarely seen such a huge puddle of milk. Well, the damage has already been
done. Would you like to get down and play in the milk for a few minutes before
we clean it up?"
Indeed, he did. After
a few minutes his mother said, "You know, Robert, whenever you make a mess
like this, eventually you have to clean it up, and restore everything to its
proper order. So, how would you like to do that? We could use a sponge, a towel
or a mop. What do you prefer?" He chose the sponge and together they
cleaned up the spilled milk.
His mother then said,
"You know what we have here is a
failed experiment in how to effectively carry a big milk bottle with two tiny
hands. Let's go out in the back yard and fill the bottle with water and see if
you can discover a way to carry it without dropping it." The little
boy learned that if he grasped the bottle at the top near the lip with both
hands, he could carry it without dropping it. What a wonderful lesson!
This renowned
scientist then remarked that it was at that moment he knew he didn't need to be
afraid to make mistakes. Instead he learned that mistakes were just
opportunities for learning something new, which is, after all, what scientific
experiments are all about. They are simply that--just experiments to see what
happens. Even if the experiment "doesn't work," we usually learn
something valuable from it.
Wouldn't it be great
if all parents responded the same way Robert's mother responded to him? After
all, why do we have that phrase, "Don't cry over a little spilt
milk." It truly is no big deal. We need to remember that we're raising
capable, confident kids--not shiny linoleum floors.
One last story which
illustrates the application of this attitude in an adult context was told by
Paul Harvey on the radio several years back. A young woman motorist was driving
home from work when she snagged her fender on the bumper of another car. She
was in tears as she explained that it was a new car, only a few days from the
showroom. How was she ever going to explain the damaged car to her husband?
The driver of the
other car was sympathetic, but explained that they must note each others
license numbers and registration numbers. As the young woman reached into a
large brown envelope to retrieve the documents, a piece of paper fell out. In a
heavy masculine scrawl were these words: "In case of accident . . .
remember, honey, it's you I love, not the car!"
Let's remember that
our children's spirits are more important than any material things. When we do,
self-esteem and love blossoms and grows more beautifully than any bed of
flowers ever could.
I'll end this be
reminding you that parenting during acutely stressful time periods adds another
element to the job that can be hard to prepare for. We are bogged down by our
own emotions and woes such that the slightest mishap by one of our kids will
send us over the edge. That said, our children can act as great buffers to that
stress. They may not have a handle on all that's going on in the world, nor
understand the decisions we have to make as parents to ensure the health and
security of our families, but surely you can agree that the joy the bring to
our lives outshines so much of that stress. Let them act as children--let them
make mistakes and learn from them. After all, it's those same mistakes we made
growing up that allowed us to mature into thoughtful, productive, and compassionate
adults. And remember, you are raising children, not flowers!
© 2009 Jack Canfield
Jack Canfield is
America's #1 Success Coach, co-founder of the billion-dollar Chicken Soup for
the Soul brand, and a leading authority on Peak Performance. If you're ready to
be more accomplished and have more fun in all that you do, get your FREE
success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessPrinciples.com.
